Dirty Little Secret
by KPtheMoviesaholic
Summary: They say there are no secrets in this world. But with Draco Malfoy, love is doubly classified. DracoXHermione. Warning: Concerning a drunk Hermione and an extremely irked Draco.
1. In the Beginning

The (rumored) Chosen One, Gryffindor's honorable quidditch captain, and Dumbledore's most trusted student confidant that he was, Harry James Potter would never be caught dead surreptitiously on discreet a mission as eavesdropping on the third floor broom closet, Friday night.

Not when his best friend, and joker extraordinaire, Ronald Weasley, was wandering the grounds with him. In his invisibility cloak.

Not when he 'happened,' to pass by after a mere 'goodnight,' of sending Cho to the Ravenclaw common room without a kiss as he usually did.

And definitely not when hearing his _other_ best friend's excited whispers and breathes inside said closet.

Running the facts over in his clouded head, Harry cocked an eye at Ron, who had similarly stopped short at the sounds eliciting from the wooden doors.

"Is that," he said, addressing Ron's confused face, "What I think it is?"

Resisting the temptation of a nervous chuckle, Ron answered defensively, hands brushing the sides of his dress robes. "Naw, our Hermione would never, ever be kissing some—"

"Oh, _Draco_…"

The sound was unmistakably the Gryffindor bookworm's, the exact tone, except perhaps in this case filled with longing and—and _yearning_, the type the duo had least expected to hear of Hermione. Harry and Ron stared at each other, shock rendering their abilities to form words.

"No, _Hermione_—"

They didn't manage as much a gasp to the obvious Draco Malfoy's breathy, seductive voice, instead of its usual snarl.

"And…" Ron uttered, bewilderment clouding his features, "Is that—"

Cutting Ron's sentence off, Harry grimaced at the thought of his Slytherin archenemy. "I only know his voice too well, Ron."

"Th—then," his best mate stuttered in response, "What the bloody hell in Merlin's beard is going on?" Ron's voice, inquisitive on the surface, featured hatred and unexplained restlessness at its core.

"Want to find out?" Harry's hand was already gripped on one door, as he gestured for Ron to follow suit, "If you'll please."

Wordlessly they mouthed, counting down in unison.

"Three…two…one!"

The broom closet's door flew open, and the sight greeting Harry and Ron, if not worth the aggravation and suspicion, was indeed surprising enough for a week's nightmare.

* * *

Never in his sixteen years of life had Harry imagined this moment: him and Ron mirroring each other's actions, brilliantly impersonating the infamous Fred and George.

Harry's and Ron's mouths promptly fell open. Gaping. Equally flabbergasted.

(Fortunately while they were invisible.)

There, was their worst suspicion and hypothesis confirmed. There, was Hermione Granger, every Hogwarts' teacher's pet, the Muggle who aced every subject, the save-the-elves do-gooder, engrossed in a fight against Draco Malfoy, the spawn of the Death Eaters and the Slytherin Prince of ferrets.

Only this time, the couple—for Harry briefly registered that he could call them that—was arguing in a broom closet. After minutes of, presumably, kissing sessions.

They were too preoccupied, _still _staring at each other, _still _in the broom closet.

"You've never," Hermione hissed, "Of all the things you've promised me. You've never!"

Slap.

Draco groaned in annoyance. "Oh for Merlin's sake, will you give me a rest, woman?" he asked, hastily dropping a hand from her waist to caress his apparently sore, reddening face.

_Impossible_, thought Harry, _Malfoy being slapped?_ _By a Gryffindor? Specifically by Hermione herself?_

"I was sliding my tongue in _your_ month _a second ago_ and now you go around slapping _me_?" Hermione raised an eyebrow at his retort. "Not a very nice thank-you, isn't it?"

"I suppose not," she loosen her grip on him, turning to leave, "But it _is_ the proper response when you still haven't tol—"

Realization abruptly cut her furious sentence directed at Draco short, as Hermione became aware of her two audiences' presence.

"Bloody hell, mate," Ron's voice whispered in wonderment, not at his best female friend, but more at the bizarre circumstances of having discovered her.

Harry rewarded his loud whisper with a punch under the cloak, subsequently revealing themselves.

She stood, face flushed, trying to regain her composure in the mess. Harry noticed with a cold jolt that, in addition to her hair, doubly bushier than normal, her blouse was unbuttoned down quite low he'd wished the vision erased from his eyes. And her skirt (_When _had Hermione ever worn a _skirt?_ With them, he only ever had seen her legs clad jeans).

Draco, who had brusquely tore himself from Hermione the second they were interrupted, occupied himself in smoothing out his crumbled shirt, readjusting the completely out-of-place Slytherin necktie, and, (the view Harry swore continued to haunt him in his sleep) untangling his pale, now-messy (positively the degree of Harry's, at certain points), short blond hair.

"Potty," he snarled, smirking at the duo, before hastily storming out.

"Ferret," Harry called after him, balling up his fists. _Wait till I catch that sleazy snake! _ yelled his mind.

"Arrogant Git!" Ron joined in.

When they had turned around, Hermione was gone.

The Gryffindors heaved a sigh. "I'd never wished I see, or witness, that in my life again," Harry said, dragging Ron to the dormitory. "Ever again. You hear, Ron?"

Yet Ron wiggled free of the grip, rushing ahead. "Like I can stop something like _that_ from happening," he muttered.

And as Harry followed his best mate back to the Fat Lady's Portrait hole, he did not attempt to block Ron's incessant shouting, out of nosy interest, out of desperate exasperation, and, most of all, out of the unanswered confusion.

"After all, what the bloody hell in Merlin's name was _that_?" Ron repeated the question he had asked Harry earlier, before _the vision_, for emphasis, "Our best friend and a Slytherin? Honestly, Malfoy? 'Mione with Malfoy? Our enemy?"

"Why? I don't know, Ron," he answered, shrugging.

"I don't rightly know."

* * *

_Damn that Malfoy. Damn him to the depths of Death Eaters' hell!_

Hermione cursed mentally, attempting to steer her mind clear of last night's frustrations, as she conscientiously pretended to read her Ancient Runes textbook.

She was sitting at her usual spot in the Gryffindor common room, on a couch opposite the fireplace, yet thoughts concerning a certain Slytherin managed to sneak into her subconscious.

The trace of his lips on hers.

Her finger absentmindedly touched her lips, a small smile appearing faintly on her face.

The blissful, bubbly feeling erupting like little firecrackers inside her during his kisses.

The way he whispered her name in her ear. Not frizzy, not buck-teeth, not Mudblood, not Granger (at times he could shape her surname into a worst sounding insult than her blood status). Just. Hermione. Just as she was.

The way his arms fitted around her.

The sense of thrill, of forbidden, albeit exhilarating pleasure just to be with him.

Escape. Let loose. Freed.

Like she's never felt before.

The secretive, just-us-two way he caught her eye after dinner, taking her hand.

"Where are we going, Draco?" she had asked, nearly stifling a stupid, senselessly un-Hermione-like giggle, but already giving him control.

He grinned, "As if you don't know." And muttering something about how he should have done this more often, he led her up the stairs, to the deserted third floor.

"A broom closet?" she said incredulously, at Draco's proudly panned hand.

He took her hand once more. "That's because you don't know what it can do," whispering into her ear, the other free hand fumbling to open the wooden doors.

Before she could make further counter attacks, he had her pinned against the wall of the tiny, confined space, his arms on either side of her.

His face leaning in so close, she had to remind herself to catch her breath.

To breathe.

The split second her befuddled mind worked ways of what to do with her erratic heartbeats, what to make of the meaning behind his cryptic gray eyes and charming smile, he, as if they had not done this ever so alarmingly recently, kissed her.

The kiss was gentle. Sweet. Everything it should be and could be.

And she almost lost herself, as the doors closed behind them.

"Oi!" a voice called, followed predictably by the clicking of fingers. "Hermione! You there? Or are you not?"

She dropped her books momentarily, and opened her eyes—Had she been caught daydreaming again?—to see her two best friends towering above her, surrounding the couch.

Harry and Ron had stepped into the common room after breakfast. On account of the dark, cloudy weather, their customary Saturday Quidditch game was suspended, allowing more 'Hermione interrogation time,' in Ron's words.

"She's kinda spaced out these days," Ron murmured, "If y'know what I mean."

Harry, whose voice Hermione recognized as the one calling her name, settled down beside her.

Ron followed, rather reluctantly.

"'Mione," he began, "Can you tell me what it was last night that you've been avoiding us since?"

Her lips twitched. She had kept this a secret far too long the Golden duo could not possibly uncover from her now.

Harry stared at the fire. "We didn't mean to pry," he said, his eyes back on hers. "But it _was_ Malfoy! And you kissed him! And—"

"—slapped him!" added Ron anxiously. "Is there something going on between you two?"

_Oh yes_, thought Hermione, _there _is_ definitely something going on between us_.

"He didn't—" Harry's question lingered in the air, unfinished. "—drug you, did he?"

Hermione shook her head. "Merlin, no!" she exclaimed, "It was, you know, on a, er, dare."

The looks of disbelief in their faces remained fazed by her possibly plausible but evidently pathetic excuse.

"I don't suppose any powerful love potion would have lasted this long, would you?" Ron asked the air, talking more to Harry.

"But you clothes!" Hermione blushed a shade of beetroot red at Harry's particularly observant sentence, the tips of her ears turning pink at the word "clothes."

She sighed, her hands thrown up in the air in a defeated gesture. "All right, you caught me. I was in the closet last night. With Malfoy. Kissing and _slapping_ him. Out of my own free and nocturnally conscious will."

"We've been together for sometime now." Guilt tuned her confession to a squirrel's squeaky tone.

A sight not unlike last night, Harry and Ron's jaws dropped. At the same time.

"What d'you—_can_ you, possibly mean?" spluttered Ron, unable to process the newfound information.

And they chroused. "_WE_?"

Hermione nodded sheepishly.

"We. Draco and I."

Ron couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Great. Now you're calling the ferret as if it actually _has_ a human name."

Harry fidgeted, trying to remember Hermione's behaviors in the last few months.

He turned to her, attention on full focus, Ron's mouth widening at every 'that's why.'

"So _that's_ why you've been sneaking out late at night. _That's_ why you stay behind a good one hour every Hogsmede weekend."

"And," he said this quite hesitantly, "That—is why you keep looking at the Slytherin table across the hall during meals?"

"Blimey, 'Mione," Ron guffawed, "Un. Believable," dissecting the one word into two.

"But—" Harry asked, "How?"

Both of their eyes bored into hers.

She bit her lip, clearly discomforted at the two's urgent questions.

"Last winter," Hermione confessed slowly, "McGonnagall paired me up with Draco for peer tutoring."

Ron's eyes looked close to popping out of their sockets.

"Peer-tutoring?" he repeated, as if his best friend was suggesting she had seen a Wackspurt. "For what? Looking like a bloody idiot?"

"For extra credit," she continued grudgingly.

Ron held up his hands, miming a weighing scale. "Easy choice. Extra Credit versus Malfoy? _Drop it!_"The phase came out similar to a bomb diffusing operation.

Harry patted Ron's shoulder. "Too late, mate."

"I reacted as you did, Ron," Hermione said, face unreadable, "I plead and plead. You'd have no idea what I said to McGonnagall. She actually told me Gryffindors and Slytherin needed to get along and refused."

"It was either Draco or no extra credit."

A light bulb went on in Harry's head. "Was it that night you came into the common room muttering something about Malfoy being so difficult?"

But she was already smiling in a (Ron's opinion, sickly) reminiscent kind of way.

"Yeah, he's _such_ a jerk."

But the sentence sounded rather opposite to her supposedly degrading remark.

* * *

As she had expected, more or less out of a Slytherin—whom she knew there's no hope of expecting anything at all—Malfoy was late.

Ten minutes, and she was still drumming her fingers on her favorite library table, tapping her feet to go along.

Girlish giggles echoed in the hallway.

"Oh, but Dra," a voice she immediately recognized as Pansy Parkinson's, plead theatrically. "D'you _really_ have to go?"

"Pfft," Hermione snorted. The venomous, sugary petnames could just about make her vomit.

'Dra' himself chuckled inwardly. "Girls, I'm _so_ sorry. It's this useless tutoring McGonnagall's forcing me to do. I'll get back to you later?" in a manipulative voice so slick Hermione doubted the girls were smart enough to know he was lying to their faces.

And _useless_. Fancy him, Draco Malfoy, calling her, Hermione Granger's, tutoring sessions useless.

_I'll _teach him to know the differences between useless _and_ senseless, she thought, gripping her wand menacingly.

Malfoy _was_ going to pay.

"Hey, Mudblood," his deep voice startled her out of her scheming thoughts. "Planning to murder anyone lately?"

Hermione gave a start. How the heck did he came behind her so fast?

He casually plonked himself down on the chair opposite hers, hands spread out on the table. "So," glancing at her face, "Enlighten me."

Annoyance and infuriation seeped their way unknowningly in her. Here she was, ready to tutor him, and he was behaving as if—as if he's the one in control?

Left him too long and…

A short attention span? Is that a Slytherin quality?

She cleared her throat. "Malfoy," sharply calling the Slytherin, who was now browsing a random book he grabbed from the shelf, "Let's get one thing straight here."

"Malfoy?"

The Slytherin did not, or presumably, refused to respond.

"_Malfoy!_"

The blonde head jerked up a little, eyes lingering on the spells of the page.

"Ferret!"

Gray orbs finally met her brown ones at her last attempt.

"What'd you want?" he said, scrutinizing her, "I'm trying to study. Or is that not what I'm here for?"

_Arrogant, filfthy snake!_

"God, _I'm_ trying to be nice and civil," she forced the words through gritted teeth, her wand hand half-way up, "To a Slytherin. As in common knowledge, it's not humanly possible, but will you just—"

He raised a nonchalent eyebrow. "Why do you even try, then?"

Her wand was pointing at his throat, Draco gasping, somewhat smugly surprised.

"Alright," she spat, "Shut it. And listen. That's all you'll need to do. If there's one thing you need to know—burn it in your pretty little blonde head, if you'd like, I'm in charge here. Not. You. Got it?"

Hermione, out of rage, had said her sentence, double her normal speed, in one quick breath.

But Draco merely shrugged. "Didn't know you like it rough, Granger."

A huff escaped Hermione's throat. "Icandealwithhim, Icandealwithhim," she muttered under her breath.

Draco tilted his head at her in feigned curiosity. "So you were saying?" he smirked, "What page?"

The Gryffindor plopped the Transfiguration textbook on the table, imperviously ordering, "Sixty five. Don't miss it, or I will so hex you."

"You don't mind my 'pretty little blonde head,' now?"

_I want to slap _HIM.

_**To be continued...(originally a one-shot. think it might be expanding...)**_

**A/N: Like it? Hate it? What do you think? **

**My first attempt at my new shipping: Draco/Hermione. (fell for him after watching HBP!!! Asako, don't know if you approve, but they are cute.)**

**Chocolate Frogs to all my readers and reviewers,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**

**Thanks-a-billion for everything,**


	2. His Pretty Little Blonde Head

As Hermione was about to find out, there were differences between tutoring a Slytherin and tutoring Draco Malfoy, a Slytherin.

Primarily because of Draco being…well, the sort of devil-may-care guy that only he could be.

Any Slytherin at all, by this point, would have been tolerable.

Save for this one.

"You'd think it ironic," he said, scribbling down the notes she thrusted (literally) into his face. "A mudblood teaching me magic. How could McGonnagall subject me to this? My Father—"

"—would have been thrilled to know his son spends his free time sucking girls' faces," she remarked, blasé to his twisted face, tapping her wand on the page. "Now. Concentrate. Let's practice the—"

"How the bloody hell do you know who and what I spend my free time with, Frizz?" he retorted, simultaneously competing against her for insouciancy, whlist tapping _his_ wand on the page. "After all, I'd thought you've wedded yourself to one of these books right here. Hardly ever go out, do you?"

She was dying to wipe that smirk off his face. To transfigure him into a F.O.U.S (ferret of unusual size) all over again. To punch that conceited face, and to pop its mocking grey eyes.

Hell, anything to quash that over-inflating ego and bigotry the size of Gringotts

"I spend a fair share of my time out of the library, if you must know, " Hermione managed smoothly, "But out of that is none of your business, Malfoy."

He cocked an eye at her, pointedly challenging her to a dare. "Oh really?"

"We don't have time to talk about this," she said, flipping her own textbook out. "It is imperative that your tutoring—and my homework be done."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Are you at it again? Rattling off a few more thesauraus-based words to make it obvious of your status as a Hogwarts smartass? Nobody blames you, know that?" He gave a semi-sincere smile at her contorted face.

_Yes, _You_ started it._ He thought.

At her silence, he continued, "And oh yes, we do have time to talk about your personal life, Granger," in trivial a tone as having found a Daily Prophet article on a mass break-out at Azkaban aided by a bunch of Death Eaters. "It is _imperative_ that we do so."

_Twisting my own words at me? Don't make me hate you than I already do, _ferret.

"And why is that?"

The most indistinct remote shade of pink colored Malfoy's cheeks, as he scrambled for a counterpart comeback. "You ever been out with a boy, specifically a male less than 25 years of age, huh?" he leaned his face closer to hers, practically spitting his words. "Ever kissed anyone? Made out in the broom closet? Third floor? Sounds familiar to you?"

He had found changing the subject to be the most effective way out of a troubling situation (any not concerning the Dark Lord and his Dark Mark, of course).

The reddened Hermione blinked rapidly. Just exactly who was Draco Malfoy to ask her these questions?

"You're just trying one of your lame maneuvers to direct me off-topics," she said flatly. "And bet your precious, puffy kissed lips I won't fall for any of those."

He slid back into his seat, fingers of both hands crossed in a reflecting gesture. "Interesting, interesting," almost a perfect pitch of Snape's. "You've commented on two of my—ahem—most attractive—features today."

And packing up to leave, Draco turned to comment, not without his signature smirk, "Let's see how that goes tomorrow, shall we? See you, or not, Granger."

"I was being sarcastic, you dimwit," she called at his retreating back, extremely irked at his provocative actions.

Plop! A transfiguration textbook flew swiftly through the air and hit its direct target.

"Ouch!" a riled Draco, in turn, massaged the back of his head, looking around at Hermione. "What in the name of Merlin was that for?"

The Gryffindor bookworm, hands at her hips, coolly replied.

"For your 'pretty little blonde head."

He scowled. "You just wait," he said in a furious whisper, pointing a finger at her, "It's not over yet."

"Try me," she grinned back. "Oh, and, uh—"

"Class dismissed."

**A/N: Just one of their little squabbles. Adding more...:P**

**Glad to know you're liking it as much as I have fun in writing it. **

**Thanks to ALL OF YOU, my readers and reviewers, for taking part in this with me**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**


	3. Her Sacred Library

"You think that I can't do magic, do you?" mused Draco.

What appeared to be a bunch of bushy brown hair jerked up abruptly from her parchment at his pondering question.

They were sitting outside the library this time, in, as fate would have it, the room of requirement.

"_You _think you have a load of free time, do you?" she shot back, this time manually throwing papers at him. "After all, _you_ got us kicked out from the library."

Ducking from Hermione's 'massive influx of knowledge,' and at the same time managing to guard his possessions from her targeting claws, Draco muttered as-a-matter-of-factly, as he continued writing down notes, "No, _you_ did."

* * *

He couldn't have been prouder than he was that moment. It was he, Draco Malfoy, who had managed the impossible: Hermione Granger, Madam Pince's favorite library-goer, sacked from her sanctuary for one whole solid week.

Step One: getting Pansy Parkinson to follow him all the way to the library, which worked out more than perfectly, too perfectly, actually. One glimpse of him leaving the Slytherin Common Room and the docile girl clung to his footsteps licentiously like a love-sick puppy.

"Dracokins," she cooed, batting her eyelashes (in what Draco thought to be the most comical way) at him, her arms attached to his as one, "Where are you going?"

Step Two: refusing to answer and leading her, dragging her to the designated area.

He shook his head briskly at her persistent question, increasing his pace.

Step Three: Position the _prop_ in front of the filthy little Mudblood and proceed.

Draco was holding Pansy by the hand now, and, enduring the sounds of her relentless giggling, pushed her to a stop before Granger's table. Without a minute to waste, he started open-mouthed, impromptu kisses, making out in the most humanely clamorous way possible.

(To date and to note, Pansy was the second to last worst kisser he ever had the lack of good fortune to experience. She was about up there with the amateur fourth-years slobbering all over his face. But that's another story.)

Whlist (kissing) Pansy was a pain in the mouth, the look of disgust and repulsion on Granger's face, as she stood up to watch the commotion, was well worth the trouble.

And, even when not closing his eyes to properly—ugh—immense himself in the kiss, she disappeared from his sight.

Until a rather sharp-pointed object hit the back of his head (regretfully, for the second time that week), causing Pansy and him to spring apart as though electrocuted.

"Keep your conquests outside the library, would you, Malfoy?" the Gryffindor girl was glaring at him, her other hand holding a heavy volume of Transfiguration, which he reckoned must have been in contact with his head a second ago. "Not all of us have the obligation to stick his tongue in a different girl's mouth every day."

The supposed complimentary sentence came out resembling a snarl. (To which Pansy gasped, "Dra! I thought you were only with me! You're dating me, aren't you! We're supposed to—")

Well, the show must go on.

Draco shrugged, oblivious to the fuming women on either side of him. "Why do you care, Granger? I can do whatever it pleases me."

At his sentence, Pansy, aware of her use(lessness), stormed off.

"Because," she wrinkled her nose, "It _is_ the library."

He was doing this just to spite her. Just to spite her, he told himself.

"And it is my library as it is yours," he smirked, "I can kiss anyone I like."

The Slytherin saw, with great delight, how her body shook in anger. "Then get out! Anywhere but here! People are actually trying to study, and if you're not one of them, as you are now declaring yourself not to be, you might as well cancel your tutoring sessions," she shouted.

"You disgust me," he heard her mutter. "Out!"

"No," he simply said, "I'm staying," settling down on the bench opposite hers, "We've got a, in your words, tutoring session left, I daresay?"

"Fool," she growled.

"Frizz," he barked back. And the shouting session, as he planned, commenced, their voices raising in volume in accordance to the level of insults hurled, after the ends of each sentence.

"Self-absorbed twat!"

"Abstinent nerd!"

By this time, they both had their wands out, pointing threateningly at each other, apparently forgetting the special circumstances she had so religiously reminded him five minutes before.

"You—"

"You—"

As if to solve their problem of running out of insults, Madam Pince marched in between them.

"You two! I'll have none of your shouting in my library," the Hogwarts librarian declared, hands waving as a sign for the spectators to leave, "All of you! No crowding around!"

Madam turned to the two students, sighing. "Granger, I'd never expected this kind of disrespect to the serenity and silence of this place out of you. I'll have to suspend your privileges in here for a week, my dear. And you," her voice changed at the point of addressing the grinning Malfoy, "Will receive the same punishment. Out. Run along now. Shoo!"

In following Madam, the rivals had unsuspectingly arrived at the entrance.

Draco chuckled loudly at Hermione's goldfish gaping mouth. "I'll have to thank _you_," he said, gesturing her to follow, "Let's get going."

* * *

Never had she been more humiliated or unfavorably treated. Never!

Because of _him_. Because of his gross profane acts!

And now she elected to stay on with him, giving him Transfiguration notes in the Room of Requirement as if nothing had happened between them.

What _was _the matter with her?

_Hermione, you're going mental_, she told herself, _Giving up to the _ferret'_s commands?_

_Ridiculous!_

"As I was saying," Draco continued, unabashed, "You don't happen to think I—"

She shoved another textbook in his face. "Yes, I doubt anyone blind would have _failed_ to see you conjure a snake out of thin air in second year."

"Nice of you to note that," he commented, catching the textbook not ungracefully, "Then why in Salazar Slytherin's righteousness am I stuck in this hellish, interminably never-ending tutoring sessions with _you_?"

_I'm doing this just to annoy her. To annoy the hell out of her._ He thought.

"And I'd have to ask myself," she replied, "Why in Godric Gryffindor's name am I so meticulously following McGonnagall's orders to tutor the most difficult, recalcitrant, overbearing ferret of a Slytherin like you? When I could have disposed of you at the library entrance? Although," Hermione pretended to think, "That could be a nice, even deserving dying place for you."

_I'm doing this just to be conscientious. Yes, conscientious. To McGonnagall and my duties, nothing more, _she pondered.

_But…Why _indeed?

**A/N: Keep fighting, Draco! We love ya! (For annoying 'Mione, maybe...~)**

**Your reviews, readings, and encouragement keep me going,**

**Love, xoxo,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**


	4. Their Dirty Little Secret

Strange, February always seemed to bring an excessive amount of love into Hogwarts. Sure, it's Valentine's season, the walls decked up in grotesque red and pink shades, to go with the love hearts flying around the Great Hall.

To the Golden Trio's bemusement (and Harry's and Ron's traumatized distress), Dumbledore had set up a Valentine's Ball that very night.

_Amor._ Chocolates and cards were owled to almost every girl of the four Houses.

Every girl, of course, exempt for the one who had the most expected hers: Hermione.

She knew. She told herself he was too much of a coward to gather enough courage to ask her. Or even to glance her way during the invitations sessions in the mornings. He was too engaged in arguing against Seamus Finnigan about whether the Chudley Cannons were to win or not this season.

Harry, no doubt, was Ginny's escort. Hermione could tell by the way she hummed her way through the portrait hole one day. Seamus was to escort a girl from Ravenclaw, and Nevile to escort Luna Lovegood, a rather perfect couple, in Hermione's opinion.

Rightfully remaining true to himself, Ron did not budge to ask her until the last minute, after everyone's said their 'goodbye's' and left out of the Common Room.

She had gotten her date, per se, yet an unimaginable cause had immobilized him in the hospital wing that specific evening.

_Damn it_, swore a voice in her head the second she heard the news. And she could do nothing else of intellectual importance, except wandering around the Common Room, until the escorts and their dates had left.

Ron, amazingly dressed up in his puffy green suit Fred and George had evidently picked out for him, lingered behind.

"Erm, 'Mione?" he mumbled, not looking at her directly, "Can I—Can I ask you something?"

Hermione only knew too well what that something was.

* * *

He saw her quietly leave the Hall, tears brimming in her brown eyes. Rushed out to somewhere she could be alone. To calm down, perhaps. Most likely not to glimpse the romantic, full moon at the Lake.

But Draco Malfoy knew it was the ideal place for Hermione Granger to be.

The Slytherin crept away from the crowd and his laughing friends and followers, stealthily enough so he may not be followed. He strolled outside, taking in the fresh air, and found her sitting, alone, under the tree next to the Lake, a hand holding a bottle—a bottle, not a mere glass—of wine.

She was not herself tonight, was the sole fact he could explain of her behaviors. But then again, had Granger ever been _normal_ on day-to-day basis? Never.

But—Merlin, 'not herself,' would have been the perfect word to describe, to illustrate the flawless beauty sitting before him.

Her hair, reminiscent of fourth year, was neither frizzy nor bushy, as he loved to relentlessly teased her. The stylish curls certainly belonged to their places, and only served to lighten her face. Her skin was—well, he had never seen or wished to see her skin, did he? The mudblood skin, he had often called it in his prejudiced mind….

Granger's dress, a strapless, light blue gown, showed her—Bloody _hell_, he didn't know she _had_ a figure, a superb one, indeed (compared to those he had, well, been with)—curves and that wintry cream skin, unrivaled against her brown hair.

Though he knew, he just knew it would be heaven to touch, to kiss that—

_Oh. _

He unconsciously, albeit loudly, tapped his head.

What in Salazar's Slytherin's name had crept into his thoughts? One glimpse of the Mudblood's skin, and he's gone wild?

_Fuck it_, Draco. What _is_ wrong with you?

"Are you here to gloat over my misery?"

_Oh, no. Oh, no. _

_Now she's alerted of my presence, she's looking up at my head tapping. She'll think I've followed her. _

_You_ Idiot.

Granger looked down once more, taking another swig out of her bottle, apathetic. "'Cause if you are, go ahead, Malfoy."

"Weasel-bee ditched you again?" was what actually came out of his mouth instead of "Are you okay?" that his heart so bizarrely instructed.

She gave a blunt nod and a swing of her bottle. "No," she mumbled, "We just had a little fight."

"A little fight?" he asked, still standing beside her, "And you're drinking _this_…I would say, I—"

She held her bottle up in front of his face. "Don't," she said, "Don't say 'I've rubbed off you,' or I'm literally going to drown this bottle, jump into the Lake, and offer myself to the Giant Squid."

_Always the feisty one, Granger_, he thought to himself.

His lips curled into a smile. "In that case," he replied, panning his hand wide in the direction of the Lake, "Be my guest. Weasley would have a cheer at your funeral, I'm sure."

She snorted, but did not answer.

"I was going to say, 'To hell with it, getting drunk once in a while is probably good for Granger,'" Draco settled down next to her, on account of a reason unknown to even himself.

"Right you were," she muttered, unmoved.

"No, really," he snatched the bottle, drinking it. "Where did you get the bottle, anyway?"

"Conjured it up," the Mudblood said, and, on seeing Draco's amused face, held her hands up, "Okay, okay. I stole it from under _your _table."

"Lying?" Draco raised an amazed eyebrow, "And stealing too? No doubt, you're off to a great start."

Granger gave a soft chuckle. "Why are you sitting here with me, Malfoy? When you—"

"—could be snogging some girl in the broom closet?" he fingered the ridiculously high collar of his velvet black suit. "One can only get too much of that, and he's bored."

She shook her head. "_You_ would say that."

"Haven't you noticed," he commented, "That I'm—"

"Without a date?" she continued his sentence, her tone lacking its usual trenchant edge, "Seems like I'm not the only unfortunate one out here tonight."

"Unlike you, Granger," Draco returned her bottle, smugly saying, "I'm not 'unfortunate,' just sick of girls to death. Besides, Pansy, thank Merlin, dumped me."

"Serves you right," she gulped, giggling at a sudden hiccup.

He waved a hand randomly in the air. "I don't care the hell about Pansy," he confessed, "She's a goddamn prop. Thought you were smart enough to know that."

"Well, better late than never," she added, her voice raising off-tune due to the gradual effects of alcohol. "Oh, and the question you asked me earlier in the library? When we were _still_ permitted to enter the library, remember?"

Draco stared at her, perplexed. "Are you on high, or something?" he asked, "To actually be answering my question? My off-the-head, absurdly insane question to investigate your virginity status?"

The Gryffindor laughed. "Oh, so that's what it was about? _My_ virginity status," she said, "Maybe because of what happened tonight, or maybe not, I couldn't care less. No, I've never properly kissed anyone. Or been out with anyone. Ron's too much of a loser to even give good, or great kisses. You'd picture it. When he managed to ask me tonight, Harry was more than thrilled, and Ginny—gulp—Ginny almost fainted."

The Slytherin reached out a hand, aiming at her bottle. "Er, don't you think you're drinking a little too much of that, frizz?"

Her other hand clung to the bottle possessively, holding it out of his reach. "No," she said, "I can handle this myself, thank you. And besides, you told me a little drunkenness would be good for me."

He shrugged. "Fine, have it your way," asking, "So, the Weaslette fainted, huh? Good news."

"I said _almost_ fainted," she amended, struggling to pull herself closer to him, "After tonight, I told you, I don't care. And if you're as good a kisser as they say, it wouldn't hurt to try this."

And, to Draco's wide-eyed astonishment, before he could utter, "This what?", she pressed her lips onto his.

Grabbing a hold of her shoulder, he edged her face back, but their lips remained mere inches apart. "Now you really _are_ drunk," he whispered, grinning.

"And so are you," she chortled, leaning in to kiss him again, only to have him push her gently away.

"Are you even conscious of what you're doing? Or are about to do? Semi-consciously, Granger?" he asked, a finger tracing her cheek, not resisting the urge to touch her any longer, "Kissing your best friend's worst arch nemesis?"

"I do," she breathed, closing her eyes. "I do."

And as Draco Malfoy cupped her face in his hands, tucking a stray strand of curl at her ear, his lips placed firmly on hers, she knew, she knew as well as he did, that they were committing a deliciously wrong sin they were to go to hell for the next morning.

But for now.

For now, while his kisses were still fervently hot on her—

* * *

"Okay, _way_ too much information there, 'Mione."

Hermione turned to stare at her two best friends. Ron was shielding his ears from any more 'make-out' parts, while Harry took the opportunity of her silence to polish his glasses.

"I'm getting to the important parts soon," she said, "Do you want to hear this or not?"

Ron mumbled something about which she caught a few words: 'romantic,' 'unhealthy,' 'relationship,' and 'Malfoy," but Harry nodded.

"Just go on, don't mind him."

* * *

—neck, while she was messing up his neatly gelled blonde hair, and kissing him back as if there were no tomorrow…

For now, they didn't care.

Why, why did it feel so wrong when…her heartbeats were right?

And why, why did the way he kissed her felt…different? Because he was kissing a Gryffindor? Because he was kissing an enemy?

Because he was kissing _her?_

He didn't know.

But for now.

For now, it would remain their dirty little secret.

**A/N: btw, "Dirty Little Secret"--an awesome song by the All-American Rejects**

**Go Draco!!! (ps. beware of drunkenness.)**

**Thanks-a-lots to everyone, my readers, reviewers,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)**


	5. His Insomnia, Her Realization

_I _kissed Draco Malfoy.

I kissed _Draco Malfoy._

No, Hermione, it was closer to granting your tongue the ultimate access to explore his mouth.

For a better rephase:

_I _started kissing Draco Malfoy _first._

Merlin, now I really understand what people mean when they say 'regret.' The realization can't have sunk in deep enough.

It's a scar of peccadillos.

What am I to say when those gray eyes meet mine again?

Can't bear to descry that mob of blonde hair I so subliminially mussed up. Or to watch his lips form words without sensing how my lips _had _been there.

Need I remind you of who he is? Where you and him stand on the (so-called, yet tangible) Good vs. Evil, Harry vs. Voldemort, magic spectrum?

He's a Slytherin, the House you swore never to contact with. Never to, if the occasion permits it, speak to.

Chances are, never to _make out_ with.

The bigot, snobbish thickhead!

What, doing this would ease the antagonism between him and me?

The next time we encounter in the hallways, he'd probably sneered—and had it leaked to all his vapid buddies that Hermione Granger finally cracked.

That he himself had her, an impeccable Mudblood who witlessly gave into his demands and her feelings, undone.

* * *

_I_ kissed Hermione Granger.

I kissed _Hermione Granger._

No, wait, my _lips_ took liberty and control over my drunken (how, after a few swigs, I'll never know), dateless brain to claim her luscious lips, her ever-so kissable neck, and her—darn it—tender skin in that insensate state.

I kissed Hermione Granger_! _

Damn. How that rings in my mind.

As if the insomnia had substituted 'slept with,' in the sentence. (The degree could be drastic…)

By the Dark Lord, please don't tell me I've exhausted my limits of sins in this life.

The immoral acts of kissing—fine, _making out_—with the Mudblood may have rivaled murdering oh-so-famous Potter a thousand times, repeated.

And _you_, Draco, how could _you_ have done it?

She's everything. Everything you ever stood up against. Everything the Malfoys had brought you up for. The south pole of a magnet to your north. A gunshot from the enemy's sidelines. A corroborating Potter confidential agent.

A sordid Muggle line mingling with your refined, noble blood…

Though exchanging saliva with her last night was not wholly unsatisfying—

Blast it. I'm getting sidetracked.

Speaking and scolding to myself as third person and praising Granger's kissing ability.

Where art thou, inhibitions and conscience?

So help me, I'm plunging into a pool of moral felony and misdemeanors.

**A/N: And the next time they meet...thun, thun, da!**

***The Dark Side never looked so good***

**Love and thanks for all the rockin' things y'all do,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**


	6. Their Battlefield

One of the impressive elements of living at Hogwarts: breakfast was a breeze in the morning, a healing elixir for the obstacles that were (godwilling, not) to occur during the day.

And what's better than the throng of fangirls (mostly Slytherin, a meager out of Hufflepuff, and, without remorse, none of the 'decent' Ravenclaw and Gryffindors) trailing his path?

Yet on that perturbing sunrise, Draco Malfoy sensed a more than palpable nuisance he could not settle, the minute he sat down on the bench at the Slytherin table.

Eggs, bread, butter, pancakes. The usual. His favorite meal to ceremonially begin his perfect days.

Normally his appetite got the better of him, the spoon and fork his weapons in forging through the food. Now he remained rigid. The meal may have been a piece of Daily Prophet news concerning a Death Eater for all he cared.

A snowy white owl landed elegantly in front of him.

_Potter_. He couldn't help a curt shake of his hand out of disgust before he quickly grabbed the owl's message.

Hold on. What news could Potter possibly be sending him?

They barely ever been civil correspondents in Hogwarts, said his mind, as he unfolded the parchment.

Oh, right. Cursive. Precisely aligned on one line even though lacking lines to guide the script.

_Not Potter._

That dirty Weasel would have sent his puny weakling of an owl, Pig-something (if he had the guts to, which Draco strongly doubted).

So…other choices eliminated, and the handwriting as a clue…

Damn. Damn. _Damn. _

_Granger._

Draco smooted the paper, studying his coerced-into-a-provisional-tutor's writing.

_Malfoy, _

_I don't know what it was last night that compelled me to commit such an act. When I said 'I don't care,' I was—you know it—drunk. And definitely not to be taken seriously. _

_But, yes, we did it. _

_You are aware, as I do, of how wrong it is. How we shouldn't have done it. Contrite would not compensate what we did._

_Let's not get any further than this. _

_I'm asking McGonnagall to cancel my sessions with you. _

_And that's it. _

_All I'm demanding is that you keep this a secret. And out of your nosy Slytherin buddies' business. It's only ours._

_H. G._

Merely her initials.

For Who-Knows's sake, if she wanted to call it quits, she could have done it at least in person. Face him. And tell him flat, 'I hate it that I kissed you,' and bang, the end.

Words and parchments were yet the poker-faced methods of conveying messages infiltrated with hidden emotions.

And 'let's not get any further than this'? What was she thinking? That he'd stoop so low to her level to 'get further' with her?

Hell, no.

He would never, in her words, 'commit such an act.' He _was_ drunk, no less. Though not to the degree of being girlishly maudlin.

Of course, they did it. To the point insofar as when he got up to leave, his swollen lips were sore and his mind swirling. They left the Lake and went up to the dorms in silence.

Contrite? Oh yes. He did feel rueful about her, as a person, as a Gryffindor, as Potter's best trustee. But it was a girl. It were the sodding kisses. And Draco Malfoy would think himself asinine had he refused a good make out with a girl.

Then again—canceling the tutor sessions? His father would sequestered his wand for the entire summer, forbid the frequent trips to the Quidditch games and the Weird Sisters' concerts (with Mother), and locked him in a room to learn the arts of Occlumency from Aunt Bellatrix. Anticipating the events alone sent shudders down his body.

He never said (or agreed with himself) that he was a 'terrible student'—he survived till this sixth year, didn't he? If vacuous humdrums like Crabbe and Goyle could manage it, then the fate of his grades wouldn't be so bad—preferably tolerable. He just needed the 'push in the right direction,' a 'focus,' maybe.

Merlin, even Father knew not everyone's a nerd-by-nature, a certifiable bookworm as Granger was.

But ironically, he might be in need of her. (The other mediocre tutors in Slytherin were taken (Blaise included). And, when talking schoolwork, his followers were out of the picture.)

Her, who asked—_demanded_—he keep (one of the better Draco's) make-out moments a secret. Foolish of her to ever think he should divulge the event to his 'buddies.' A more foolish person he would be if he ever did so.

Contempt and disrespect would be too light, if words would serve to describe the public perception of his news.

He shook his head, haphazarding a cursory peek at the Gryffindor table on the other side of the Hall, where the bushy hair of the suspected, on sighting his blonde, sunk down.

Draco went back to the Granger of the letters.

'It's only ours.'

_Ours._ Somehow he felt a very, (_very,_ he repeated in his mind) faint trace of sentiment towards that individual line, that individual word standing out from the rest of her writing.

Ours. Sounded of uniformity. Linkage. A relationship.

Wait.

That word did not cross his mind, did it?

_Relationship! _

On the verge, Draco, you're on the verge of falling into aimlessness since venturing into this uncharted territory with the Mudblood.

Just _find _her.

Find Hermione Granger. And extract the facts—emotionlessly—out of her.

That's what he needed to do.

Suddenly morning wasn't much of a breeze as it used to be…

* * *

Herbology.

Right. The next place she must be was the glasshouse. No illusions to deflect her off course. No Malfoy to 'further' the pernicious deeds she (gladly and willingly) committed with him last night.

Nothing.

Then why weren't her feet leading the way to the _bloody _glasshouse? (The swear word was more than necessary for emphasis.)

Rigidity. Stillness. What was this?

_Move! _She mouthed at her refractory feet.

God (Muggle swear for _extra_ emphasis), anyone seeing her right now (Thank Godric Gryffindor Harry and Ron had to have second rounds of breakfast) would think her overtly ludicrous. Nonsensical for a typical Hermione Granger.

Okay, there's an upgrade. We're moving.

Into—

"Malfoy?"

Oh, great. Her books, parchments, and stationery were about littering the whole floor, the way they scattered in the mess between him and her.

She bumped head-to-chest with him, _and_ she dropped her books.

She didn't want to think, or dream of the events that were to occur next.

She bent down to retrieve her possessions when another pale hand joined her in picking up her books.

Gray eyes targeted hers.

No way to escape from this one.

"Why are you here?" the de rigueur of the social etiquette could not pique her more.

She could have ignored him, but there was the fact that he was holding her Transfiguration textbook (which she had used against him two consecutive times) in his hands.

He toyed with her textbook, casually answering, "Why shouldn't I? It's my school too, is it not, Granger?"

"I meant," his hand holding the textbook coiled back at her attempt to snatch it back, "Why are you here, following me around?"

He threw back his head, chuckling. "Getting ahead of yourself, are we?"

Why did he have to smirk everytime he met her? It's intractably _annoying._

"For the record, just a lame make-out session with you doesn't entitle me as your personal stalker. 'Following me around,' pfft," he muttered.

There was something in his eyes that told her he was not telling the truth. Something spelled out as guilt and self-betrayal.

The second the word 'make-out' slipped out, she, on an apprehensive edge, touched a agitated finger to his lips, hushing the Slytherin from revealing any more of their 'secret.'

"Shh!" she hissed, "Don't say _that_ word here. What would people think with _that _word said in between you and me?"

Maintaining a facetious attitude, Draco shrugged. "I don't know. A Slytherin king acing an ignoble Mudblood in a kissing competition?"

She wasted no time and indirect methods in expressing her accured fury, in grabbing his unblemished shirt by the collar, speaking into his face.

"You're being so bloody obdurate!"

He held up his hands in a defeated gesture. "Right, right, whatever that means. I'm thankful you're swearing, Granger."

Her lips twitched, ignoring his sardonic comment. "Besides, I shouldn't be here talking to you. Since we've got nothing more to do with each other. I've got a Herbology class to get to."

He caught her (wand hand) wrist. "I don't."

"But I do." She turned back, writhing out of his grip, "So _let go!_"

"Can't," he was taking full control of her body now. One false move and she was immobilized in his grasp, her wand hand struggling. "Since we've got _something_ to do with each other. Actually, we _did_ something with each other. You and I, then, have unfinished businesses to get to the bottom of."

In the worst form of impulsiveness possible (according to her), he was half-dragging her to the Room of Requirement, deaf to her pleas ("Malfoy, please, just please let me go. I can't miss this period."), which soon accumulated to irated screams ("Give back my wand! I'll get you back for this! Make it indelible scars you'll wish you regret ever first laying that hand on my wrist! Damnit.").

To which he replied in a not-so-cajoling voice, "Learn to be suave, woman!"

"After all, we _are_ going to discuss this matter in the most affable, diplomatic way possible."

**A/N: Anyone sensing "denial" written in invisible ink all over the page? I do...**

**Thanks for everything,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**


	7. Her Seduction, His Confessions

_Twenty Two…_

_Twenty Three…_

Of course, he had learned how to count, how to steady the anxious heartbeats before that traumatizing first Quidditch match and duel against Potter in second year, how to calm the nerves before kissing his first girl…

But this, this _Granger_ sound, was nothing like it.

"That's five minutes and twenty four seconds you've stolen my wand, held me captive, and denied me from being in my rightful place."

He lifted his head up from a magazine he was reading to pass the time, to break the freaking waiting ice while the Mudblood was getting acclimated to her newly (and forcibly) acquired state as his prisoner. She was sitting, her back against the cold wall—for the Room of Requirement was empty, save for two chairs—for his purposes, hands crossed at her chest, face scrunched up in dismay and obvious accumulating discomfort.

"What the hell do you want from me, Malfoy?"

Draco smiled. "Now, unless you behave yourself," he _tsk_ed, his free hand whirling her wand in the air, miming casting spells, just to spite her, "Haven't I told you we're discussing this in a civilized manner? I'm not using violence against you unless needed. And here you are, not shutting up about your captivity. I'll just wait. Tell me when you're ready to talk."

She rolled her eyes at his smooth, persuasive voice. "Why do you even bother with me, anyway? Dragging me in for a special interrogation? Couldn't find any other girl to torture?"

He flipped another page of his magazine. "One, I've tortured no girls in Hogwarts, but merely indulged them in what they wanted to do. (She shot him a look.) Two, this is no special interrogation session. It's a negotiation deal we're working on. And three, it is painfully obligatory that I occupy myself with bothering you because, much to my appall and your good fortune (to be in my company), there are no other self-respectable tutors available at the present."

Hermione studied his expression, her face remaining nonchalant. "You mean—you, Draco Malfoy, actually are in need of me?"

"As much as I despise you and Potty, yes."

Much to her own, and Draco's surprise, she chuckled softly. "And you think imprisoning me would grant my 'yes,' to your so-called negotiating deal that I remain your tutor?"

He slammed the magazine down, getting up from his chair to approach her spot on the floor. "Mistakenly, no," he said, "But you didn't give me the slightest chance to ask you with that attitude, either. Believe me, missing a herbology class is a crown jewel to add to your collection."

"In the folders of making out with you? Sure," she attempted to blow a stray strand of her hair off her face, openly disclosing her lethargy.

"Don't even attempt to diverge me off-topic," he seated himself next to her, "I know what you're trying to do, Granger. I've tried that before."

_With my Father._ He added inwardly.

"What?" she widened her eyes, almost of feigned innocence, "What? Talking about making out with you is off-topic here? Didn't know that."

Now that's news to her. _He_ considered discussing making out with _her_ an off-topic talk.

Draco heaved an exasperated sigh. "If you're not saying the word, I can assure you, you'll be stuck with me for quite sometime."

She whistled. "Quite sometime," Hermione let her thigh brush his—incidentally, and uncovered an implausible, (yet lowly expected) detection: The Slytherin did shiver, as he edged himself an inch farther from her.

"That's too bad. I probably won't," she continued, leaving her sentence hung in the air.

Ah hah.

His squirming exposed the location of her wand to be conveniently (or so she thought) hidden at the back pockets of his robes.

Perfect.

If she had gotten herself into this mess, she had found a way to get herself out.

Now, things might get a little bit messy, but who cared if it would be the last, desperate way of freeing herself from his grasp at all?

_Are you sure about this, Hermione?_ she asked herself subconsciously, watching _him_ watching_ her_ out of the corner of his eye, whilst he was pretending to give the (wacked-out) impression of meditating over something vital. _Tangling yourself with the ferret?_

_Can't you just race across the room and—_

_Tut, tut. _She told her disarrayed mind. _He'd allow me to do that when hell freezes over._

_Or you could have just said yes._

And give in for the what, hundredth time? I know I've sworn it. Now I'm going to make the wish come true. He _has_ to pay for capturing me like this.

* * *

Except for the unforeseeable future (to him, then) of Hermione and Draco in the broom closet sharing wet snogs, the other Eight Wonder of the World Harry never thought he would see was right in his hand, rippling like a wave in the wind.

Hermione's detention slip.

"I can't believe she's skipping class, honestly," Ron muttered, while inspecting what Harry suspected not to resemble much of the plant they were supposed to end up with. "And we are not."

Harry touched his own sample of the plant, opening the textbook to the page Sprout was frantically on about. "Hermione must be up to something, Ron," he decided.

His best mate scoffed. "Something? Something worthy of detention? Bless her," he commented flatly.

"She's finally experiencing Hogwarts as it is. As commoners like us."

* * *

Meanwhile, Hermione was experiencing a phenomenon quite far from common: Draco Malfoy.

At first it were the little things. Inching closer to him, she drew lazy, teasing circles on his arm, watching in amusement how the hair started to prick, as his shaking hands gradually formed into fists.

Her inveigling hands tiptoed their way pass his neck, gently stroking his mob of blond hair.

_Oh, do attempt to stay still, Draco_. Her smile seemed to say to his quivering form. _You won't last long._

And then her lips went into play, brushing against his, lingering here and there on his forehead, his nose, his cheeks.

The way she shamelessly manipulated herself towards his body, she was, to all intents and purposes, straddling him.

"Wha—"he stuttered, breathing in short huffs helplessly at her wandering hands, "What exactly _do _you think_ you're_ doing, Granger?"

"You'd be a fool not to know, Malfoy," she purred, lips claiming his neck.

"And this time you're not drunk?" he asked, a little startled when she placed his hand on her waist.

Breath in, Draco. _Breath in. _

For Slytherin's sake—no, for _your_ own, control your feelings. Curb your temptations…

You're not letting her get away with this.

Seduce you to the Inferno, are you?

But, _Merlin_, she was doing all the right things. Kissing him, touching him, _teasing_ him where it worked. Stimulating his vulnerable spots.

"And this time I'm not drunk," she breathed, attentively manipulating her hands in ways he couldn't resist.

Couldn't abstain from being in contact with her. From giving in.

Oh, the hell.

_Fuck this._ Granger's being so bloody incredible and sultry it's _agony_ to keep still.

She paused, mute at his fondling of her cheeks, doubtlessly granting him control. He maneuvered them so her back was to the wall, him sitting opposite her.

"A simple yes would suffice," he murmured, before closing his eyes to engross himself in yet another kiss.

"And this time you're not doing—_kiss_—it, just to entice me, so you can get out?"

Her another hand, reaching to his back for her wand, jumped at meeting his ready hand.

She unceremoniously untangled her lips from his, a nauseated look on her face.

"I know, I know," he stroked her retreating hand, his wand hand gripped firmly on both their wands at his back pockets. "You're asking me, 'How did you know, Malfoy?'" tuning his voice to a girlish impersonation of hers.

This time, she clutched her hands, salacious phrases and words escaping through her gritted teeth.

"No answer?" he grinned, blithely clicking his fingers, "Well, can't say I haven't relish your attempt in trying. Your lips were amazing—(on seeing her widening eyes)—oh, yes, they _were_."

"It's strictly business, Malfoy," she finally replied, hands crossed at her chest once more, "I'm not kissing you out of sheer liking, if that's what you're looking for."

"Oh, no," he said, "Not at all. Not by the way you're still sitting on my lap."

Frowning, she slid off him as if he were a poisonous object.

"Or even the way you chose to kiss me, to tempt me into being _entranced_, _mesmerized_ by your charms rather than taking a simple 'yes,' as your ticket out," he winked at her suggestively.

"I—"

"You thought I have to pay, didn't you?" Draco glanced at her face, "For incarcerating you like this? I'm not a Prefect for nothing, Granger."

"Besides, I'm a great actor, aren't I?"

Yes, the hesitant sounds, the stiff way he positioned himself. Utterly and foremostly deceived her.

Pink shades creeping up her features, she, refusing to answer his penetrating questions, snatched his magazine from the back of him. "And what is it you're reading? It's not _PlayWiz_."

He reddened, fumbling with his hands. "Who _told_ you I read _PlayWiz_?"

She laughed at his fall into the trap of her own making: distraction. "Every amour-propre wizards do. Just as the way I read _Witch Weekly_." Hermione scanned his 'magazine.' "Hold on a second, it's my Transfiguration notes bind into a book! So this is why you've been so negligent as to return any of my notes! What are you doing, reading my handwriting?"

"Er, studying?" he answered, dead-pan.

"_Studying?_" she repeated skeptically, slapping the handmade book lightly at his cheeks. "I don't think so, _ferret._"

"It was _once _in _fourth _year," he said, "I am _not _a ferret, Mudblood."

"At least I am _not_ a narcisstic playboy of a wizard," she said. "I think you're onto something here…"

He adjusted his tie, in an expression she had rarely seen: nervousness. "The way you're saying it, you were onto something with your effing _seductions_."

Her turn to blush.

"I hate the way you pretty little blond head always is neatly gelled."

His hand flew up to the top of his head. If she wanted to play this game, fine.

"I hate the way it feels so different when you touch me."

"I hate the way your clothes are so wonderfully, impeccably flawless."

"I hate the adorable way you look when you're irritated with me."

"Did _you_ just say a_dorable_, Malfoy?"

He slapped his mouth. "I hate the way you're always interrupting me with your know-it-all remarks. The way your _tantalizing _physique distracts me from studying during the tutoring sessions."

"I hate the way you're a Slytherin."

"I hate the way you're a Gryffindor."

"I hate the way you look hot when you're nervous."

"Did _you_ just say _hot_, Granger?"

She slapped her mouth.

"I hate the way I give in to your seduction."

"I hate the way my name sounds when you say it."

"I hate the way you kissed me."

"I hate the way your kisses on the Valentine's Ball that night are so damn indelible."

"I hate the way _I_ kissed you back."

"I hate the goddamn helpful way you were that night."

"I hate the gorgeous way you look when you're drunk."

"I hate the befuddling effects of your fucking kisses on me."

"I hate it that I'm supposed to hate you."

"And you don't?" she tilted her head to look at him properly, trying to read his mind.

"And I hate it that I don't."

And the particular way he was confessing his feelings told her they might as well not be discussing the matter in the most 'affable, diplomatic,' way, after all.

"You know what," she eased the distance between them, whispering into his ears, "I…don't, either."

As they resumed what they were doing prior to her (sneaky) interruption (of stealing back her wand).

Only this time, she was espousing his loathsome, paradoxically alluring kisses out of her own free will.

**A/N: (cheers quietly in the back) I hate the way they're together now. =) Not. **

**...Now I'm smiling when people say "She's fallen into the Dark Side."....**

**You asked for longer episodes, and here it is. (smiles)**

**Thank you for all the reviews and hits I've received, **

**I can't have done it without you guys!**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)  
**


	8. Their Evening Kisses

"_Mhm…no, we should stop, Malf—" _

_At her abrupt pulling away, leaving his eager lips and wandering hands empty, his additional kiss muffled her voice, her sentence partially said. _

"_Name's Draco," he whispered, nuzzling her neck. _

"_Draco, is it?" she teased, fingers trailing down his shoulders, "You're allowing—"_

_Another silencing kiss. Almost as if he prided himself too well for his expertise in this area outside the classroom._

_Bemused, he stared at her rigid response, muttering in mock annoyance._

"_Seriously, just shut up and proceed with me, Gran—"_

"_Call me Hermione," she smiled, her lips capturing his._

_First-name basis. What a development._

"_So, _Hermione_," he whispered, savoring her name, "Do whatever you want with me."_

"_I'm yours."_

_She chuckled at his risque invitation, kissing the top of his head. "I meant it, Draco, we should stop." _

_He lifted his head from her neck, slightly dazed. "Hm? Why not?"_

"Because, Draco, you haven't recited the spells to transfigure a rat into a jumping hat for me."

He blinked.

In front of him was an amused Hermione, sitting erect at her chair, hands spread out on the table at the sides of his and her textbooks, casually waiting for him to snap out of his daydream (currently replaying vivid, imaginary sessions non-stop, without commercials).

"I don't mind, actually. We have all day." she grabbed a quill, patiently writing at a slower pace than normal on her parchment.

_The nerve of this woman. Being able to kiss her did not authorize his still having to work under her (rules). _

_Going to enslave a Malfoy, Granger?_

Sure, his infinitely extended tutoring sessions did benefited his grades in a long term course, but she's so absorbed in her studies they barely had time for anything else.

The chance of getting her alone was close to robbing the most highly secured vaults at Gringotts.

"Must we really study, Hermione?" he waltzed over to her side of the table, whispering in her ears the same breathy voice he made maximum usage of, his hand holding onto her quill, paralyzing her writing. "We could do something else, something much more interesting and _physically_ active."

He was in such close proximity to her he could visibly watched the blush creep up her cheeks.

She curtly brushed his hand away, swearing under her breath. "What do you think you're doing, Draco? Not _here_!"

"Promise, then," he played with a strand of her hair, his mind evidently onto plotting non-textbook materials, "Not to distract me so much."

Infuriation rose at his suggestive grin at her.

Whilst she was deciding how to best strangle him, Draco resumed his unreadable expression, the usual façade when one of the Slytherins was near, and insouciantly thrust a piece of parchment into her hand, spitting aloud into her face as he packed up.

"Don't miss it, Granger."

Hermione unfolded the paper, studying his messy script.

_H,_

_Here. After Dinner. Alone._

_D. _

She let out a disbelieving gasp at his daredevil behavior, and was about to simultaneously give him a piece of her mind when she found, at looking up from reviewing the message a couple of times, that he was gone.

* * *

There were three insensible things Draco Malfoy found himself inconspicuously doing on that following Saturday evening.

One: he promptly had 'unforeseen' urges to visit his pristine favorite spot of Hogwarts.

His hand firmly gripping a torn piece of parchment, he was taking brisk, impetuously short strolls (the kind he only ever saw a specific muggleborn girl fashioned, especially when she's in a hurry—which she always was, regardless of her destination) out of the Slytherin Common Room (He had waited long enough until others had fallen into peaceful slumbers. Oh no, it was him who's getting the night of _his_ life. And it would not vaporize incorrigibly in the form of a dream.) towards the (surprise) library.

Two: his heart was accelerating its beating just anticipating the clandestine meeting.

Merlin, this would never happen with the other girls he 'used' to pass the time. No, who in the world of magic cared now if she was indeed a mudblood or a muggleborn. He, against his better judgment of taught, efficiently inculcated prejudices, did not.

Why should he?

He was supposed to despise her. He had been mulling over that. Yet, seeing her laughs, her smiles, her irritable, bossy ways unlocked mysteries inside his mind he was unaware of.

Three: after greeting her, lips first, he started snogging her senseless, his hands attached to her waist, hers almost instinctively mussing up his hair, his body pressed atop against her, both of them now leaning on the bookshelves (he was about able to fathom their practical, other than theoretical, functions at the moment) for support.

Of course the first attribute he noticed of her was her physique. And her lips.

He was a straight, heterosexual person, for truth's sake. A guy, to say plainly.

Those features in a girl, no less, proved how the more attractive they posed, the easier to tear his trained eye away.

They were merely a girl's cover, her façade of her real self.

Same with Granger. He did not and was not distracted by her figure by one bit (this he added in his head, as his hands were finding their way around her shirt).

Not until the Valentine's Dance. When she had to sport that drunk, maudlin attitude he couldn't help himself. (Besides, she started it.)

(And the knowledge of her confirming his belief of the Weasel being a 'loser' much comforted his thoughts.)

Add that to how he favorably was in need of her intellects, multiply by her (hot) seduction, and he had arrived at the solution he was peppering kisses over.

It all seemed silly to him, frivolous and trivial for a Slytherin whose posture never strayed clear of vanity and smugness, to fall for a studious, pro-Potter Gryffindor.

Things didn't make sense anymore.

She was opposite. She was different.

She was herself.

The licentious affairs he had been involved with over the past few years told him he had seen nothing yet, when he met her.

She was the sole girl who refused and was blatantly repulsed by him. Regretted what they did together, even, and adored bizarre habits of his he found ridiculous.

Whatever the reason (he tried to find to amend for himself, to stretch his best efforts at explaining the uncommonly nonpareil experience happening to him in months), she was his.

Oh yes, she was his.

* * *

There were moments in life one tended to express sour penitence over, alarming messages ringing in the back of the mind, reiterating what one should or should not have done. Mooning over the spilled-milk, irreparable kinds of mistakes.

She discovered, somewhat, that nearly most of hers disappeared into thin air.

At least, while she was in his arms, hearing his voice and feeling his kisses.

Right and wrong seemed to vibe the same messages to her nerves.

Frisson was getting her head over heels, but they were not committing detrimental acts to destroy the wizarding world, were they?

And with her, he was not the same Draco he used—or pretended—to be. The other side of him was—vulnerable, amiable, romantic, to name a few.

He wasn't the old Slytherin she wanted _Avada_ed off the face of the Earth. Not the 'mudblood' hater who bullied people as his hobbies.

As if he had changed.

**A/N: Working on better chaps. (hands up) MUST finish this before term opens!!!**

**(less than seven days)**

**Love you all, and the more great stuff is coming on the way ,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)**


	9. Her Illicit Paramour, His Leman

"I bet this could buy me a dozen chocolate frogs from Honeyduke's!"

With a bag of sickles in his hand, the elated Ron Weasley fancied himself the luckiest sixth-year in Hogwarts ground. In a rare fortuitous moment, he had, for the first time in his life, won a bet against someone else not biologically related to him by blood: Dean Thomas. Thanks to the Hufflepuffs for beating the Ravenclaws in the most recent game of quidditch, he now boasted 'resources' for conquests at the Hogsmede sweetshop.

Yes, to top it off, it was a Hogsmede weekend.

And at his sides on their walk to the village were no one else but his two best friends (one whose relation could possibly be more than platonic), Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

"Seriously, mate," Ron chattered, powered in euphoria, "I could do so much with this."

Harry examined Ron, worriedly probing the youngest Weasley thoroughly for signs of over-excitement in the (predicted) extreme cases of obligatory life-saving levitation up to the dorms.

_If Hermione wasn't around…_

"Erm, yeah," he muttered montonously, hands tucked in his jeans pocket, "Don't get too absorbed in mon—hey, Cho!"

Ron looked up from fumbling with his 'money bag.' The end of Harry's sentence was doubtlessly directed, diverted from the redhead, at the Boy-Who-Lived's on-and-off Asian, Ravenclaw girlfriend, Cho Chang, who stepped in gailey to join their group.

"Hi, Harry," she greeted him, placing her hands in his, a move which brightened Harry's face as if his birthday had arrived early but which sickened Ron to the core.

_The nerve of some girls…interrupting a friendly, productive conversation…_

He went back to his business, not before sending a silent whisper to Harry, gesturing ostensibly at Cho. "And _you_ don't get too much absorbed in girls, either!"

Harry rewarded Ron's simpatico, like-wise warning with a sheepish grin, as he slid an arm across Cho's shoulders.

"Huh, friends of mine, either are absorbed with money or girls," Hermione pondered loudly, (Harry giving her the universal sign of 'shush') in a mock sigh, breaking her silence for the first time that morning.

Ron spun on her. ""What about you, 'Mione? What are _you_ absorbed in?"

The Gryffindor bookworm unconsciously felt blood rushed to her cheeks at Ron's retorting questions, at the thought of associating the word 'absorbed,' with a certain Slytherin, with _him_.

_Absorbed? _

Obsessed. Craved. Enthralled.

More like.

"Well?" the redhead was juggling his bag from one hand to the other while walking, "Hermione?"

Her eyes darted from his inquisitive hazel to Harry's green. "Nothing you need to know about," she finally uttered under her breath.

Ron shrugged, disinterested, "Your precious textbooks, maybe."

Rather than bothering herself with Ron's frequent, petty, nobody-takes-me-seriously issues, Hermione caught Harry's eyes the second time, winking their furtive signal.

Harry returned the wink, slipping the item Hermione inquired to borrow two days prior to the trip to her awaiting hand behind his back.

Her hand grabbed onto the soft, silky material. "Thanks," she mouthed, covering herself in the cloak of invisibility and stealthily trudged away to her destination.

Ron, meanwhile, was too busy deciding between Hogsmede shops to notice the disappearance of his best girl friend. When he had realized Hermione remained abnormally silent to his quirky comments (instead of springing into her regular lively, 'enlightened,' lectures or comebacks), Harry was shrugging before his eyes, lips forming the words, "I don't know."

"She's gone?" he asked, surprised, "And is that—"

"My bag is opened, yes," Harry said, still hand-in-hand with Cho.

The knowledge dawning on him, Ron exclaimed, "No. Effing. Way. You let her borrow the Cloak?"

It was a secret known exclusively in the Golden Trio's circle that Harry would bring with him the Cloak every Hogsmede trip, provided that some events needed further investigations into (or perhaps for cases of apparent wishes to disappear off the face of the Earth—experiences exceptionally noted to happen to Ron on a maddening, periodic basis).

"What," Harry grinned, amused at Ron's gaping mouth.

"I trust her."

* * *

_Oh, the irony. _

_If only he knew what I was using the cloak for_, thought Hermione, smiling to herself when she had arrived at their meeting place.

For Merlin's sake, McGonnagall would never let them see the sunlight again had they been discovered here.

For she was standing in front of the Whomping Willow.

* * *

_Oh, the dangers of going out with Hermione Granger_, Draco mused.

He was, on a peculiar take of his better (of which conflicted with most negative views) traits, just standing there, punctually waiting for her at their meeting place.

Damn. He didn't know this girl. Didn't know her at all.

Who knew she loved little risks?

A date before the school's notorious body-crasher? Please. Even he wouldn't take the chance.

Every time he met her, it was getting to know her anew all over again.

He checked his watch—a gift from his Father for his sixteenth birthday.

_Precisely ten o'clock. Where is she?_

Traditionally it wasn't his role to be the worried widow. That's the girl's to fret about. Hermione's turning switches in his dating rules, his calendar, his love life as he familiarized himself with, and his senses.

He almost walked back to the dorms, in not-so-smug thoughts that it was her joke to simply stand him up, when his ears perked up at the sound of a lone wooden branch on the grass snapping.

Accompanied by a girl's voice, a _very_ familiar individual Gryffindor's voice he had become accustomed to.

"Oops."

He spun around, scanning the deserted area for any signs of her.

Merlin's beard, he _was _alone, after all.

Then how on Earth would that branch snap at the same time as her cry?

Perhaps someone's playing a nasty trick on him. Behind that bush.

Wasn't this—reminiscent of three years ago when invisible forces 'attacked' his hunchmen in the snow?

Hold on. Invisible. Potter and his friends.

He traipsed blindly through the grass, calling her name. "Hermione! I know you're here, some wh—oof!"

An imperceptible force apparently blocked his way to continue, even grabbing onto his arm. And a voice whispered. "Hey, it's me."

He chuckled. "I'd kiss you, but I have no idea where your lips are, Hermione."

But she took his hand, leading him closer to the Whomping Willow. "C'mon, we'd better get inside."

Flinching slightly at her daring act, he allowed her control. With a swish of her wand (and a nonverbal spell), the tree's motion was suspended, safe for entry.

She pushed him into the blackness. "You first, I'll follow."

A split second later, he landed flat on his face on a cold, grimy dirt path.

He barely had time to utter, "Oof," when (what sounded like a) Hermione effortlessly entered.

"Welcome, officially, to Whomping Willow, Draco," she smiled, her outstretched hand hovering strangely in the air to help him stand up.

He brushed the dust off his sides, without another word.

Pushing, cajoling, chortling as they did so, the couple reached the end of the passage and the door leading to…

"The Shrieking Shack?" he said in wonder, hand yet attached to Hermione's. "But…?"

The 'force' giggled, wordlessly pulling him into the antiquated, tenantless room.

"Now what?" he teased, finding it bizarre his hands were roaming in the air aimlessly. "Where are your lips? Hm, are they here," Draco pretended to brush his at random spots before her invisible figure at each word, "here. Or here?"

As expected (and planned), Hermione instantly threw the cloak off in response, murmuring querulously—the way he'd preferred her voice, "_Here_, you idiot."

"Your idiot I'll remain," he gave her that signature smirk of his, before rightfully locating (and matching) her lips to his.

Engrossed in the kisses, they stumbled clumsily, stepping backwards closer to the ancient bed behind them.

When a rat inopportunely (or should he say opportunely, had he known what was to happen), scuttled past Hermione's shoes, provoking from her a small scream, a detachment from his lips, and (to Draco, the best reaction to a scuttling rat so far in history) a impromptu pounce on his unprepared body.

If anyone (ever) interrogated him on how his first lay on the bed atop Hermione Granger happened, Draco swore to confess in frankness that he did, in that split second her warm body collapsed onto his, try to catch her with all his might, but she (unfortunately) lost balance.

And afterward it could only make sense (leastwise, to him) that through a series of inescapable (and pleasurable) balancing actions, he found himself on top of her, their noses touching, his breaths tickling her neck beneath him.

"Well?" she said, her eyes twinkling, hand knotting his hair.

"Well," he repeated, kissing her lightly on the lips, "We could always continue."

She gave a small, muffled sound of contented satisfaction in her throat, as his skilled lips left hers in subtlety, progressing towards her jawline to her neck, sucking at particular spots that tensed her increasing ecstatic hold on his shoulders, blurring her, obfuscating his remaining sentient qualms.

While hers were loosening up his tie, his hands continued to map her writhing body, moving in synchronization with his lips, passed her cheeks on their way down her lissome form.

Arriving at her—

Slap.

"Ouch."

The motions, the short huffs, and her murmurs responsive to his kissing froze when he laid his hand on the back of her skirt.

To follow up his sudden cry, Draco hastily shook his sore hand, steadying his breathing.

"Hermione—"

"Don't you ever dare to get down there!" she said, her cheeks flushed. "Merlin's sake, Draco, I'm not your typical, get-her-laid-and-leave girlfriend."

"Hermione—"

"That's it," her grasp on him loosened. "I'm getting up. Get off me, you!"

Her fingers were jabbing on his chest, but he calmly caught them still, whispering, "Bloody hell, Hermione, would you give me a chance to explain myself? It was an accident," An _intentional _accident, "I'd go ahead with other girls but not you. Not you, okay? I know you're not like them. I know how far I—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Hermione's perpetuating attempts at getting up (without him) succeeded, promptly resulting in another roll.

The next thing he knew, his back was to the floor, and on top of him lay a chagrined, furiously blushing Hermione, taking in audible gulps of air.

They were off the bed—for good.

Ending a period of nervous stares, he held up his hands. "Not me. You. It's okay, Hermione, our minds are filthier than we think," winking at her oblivious pretense.

_Oh, hell, is she cute when she's acting guilty?_

_Definitely._

She had her hands crossed at her chest, a gesture Draco knew meant to order him around.

"At your command, miss," he nodded his head to her unfolding smile.

"I'm, um, on top," he had to praise her for the exemplary efforts at hiding whatever remnants of her morification, "So it's only reasonable that you," she cocked an eyebrow at him, "Carry me up."

He pointed a finger at himself, playfully asking. "Me?"

"Like any gentle prince should do," she finished her sentence quickly, not looking at him in the eye.

He pretended to hesitate. "Oh okay, I suppose I could handle that," before enveloping her in his arms, helping her stand back up on the ground.

"Thank _you_," she said, so hurriedly he barely caught the end of her 'you.'

Draco entwined her hand in his, contemplating her chocolate eyes, "So, where to, next?"

Hermione cautiously stepped farther away from the bed. "Somewhere…without this creaky old bed. And fresh air."

Oh, he just happened to have the ideal locale in mind.

_Fresh air. _He thought, intrigued.

_This was getting interesting._

_

* * *

_

Splash.

"Hey!"

Hermione glared at him in mock accusation, splattering water at him as an answer to his challenge.

"Oh yeah?"

Grinning, he sprinkled another 'bomb' on her face, watching her giggle in delight.

As Draco had suspected, the Lake area was deserted on Hogsmede weekends, save for the two maniacs sploshing water at each other's faces for the last five minutes.

Their clothes were dripping, soaked with water, but for once, Hermione did not care.

"Y_ou_ don't know what you're up against," she faux threatened, turning back to collect more water to her advantage, clueless of his advancing figure.

"Oh, no—oh, no, no, no, you're not—doing what I think you're trying to—wah!"

At her half-serious, half-joking pleading, he already had his hand on her back, and at the right moment, pushed her into the water.

She rose up from the water, spluttering, "Draco Malfoy, I am going to get you for this! I swear I—"

For he, laughing, had obligingly jumped in after her, spraying more water at her drenched face.

And placed his lips onto hers.

As if Stunned by a stupefy curse, Hermione 'forgot,' to continue threading water, the couple descending down into the depths of the Lake, surfacing again after a few blissful seconds, still lip-locked, still immersed in each other's arms.

Click. Shutter.

Flash!

They blinked rapidly at the blinding light, seconds ticking in their heads before arriving at the discernment of the event.

That they were just photographed.

That their kiss, their per-fervid embrace were recorded in moving, solid film for prints.

By none other than the presently fleeing covert of a fifth year Gryffindor, Colin Creevey.

_Oh, shit._

**A/N: A cliffy =).**

**Gotta Love Colin, don't ya. He just turns up at the right moments. (sneaky laughs)**

**Dedicated to my co-ideas finder of a marvelous friend, Asako (Bezelneef's Curses)--yes, I must drag you into the fandom, heh. (So much fun discussing the chapter with her. Ha. And her _*smexy smooching in the shrieking shack* _(yeah, we're high.). The "I want the dive and the kiss in the water" suggestion of hers. Hahaha.)**

**The writing's mine. The ideas are ours. (smiles)**

**Hope you like it.**

**Thanks to all the precious reviews and hits, love to everyone XD,**

**Your ever humble fanfic writer :)**


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